I Know You're Angry Too!

Five years or so ago, when I used to blog every day, a dumb column from one of the professional writers could really angry up my blood. Looking back, I can't really figure out why. I suppose I was too close to the subject, recreationally and emotionally. Even if my thoughts on the Nationals only mattered to perhaps a dozen other people out there, those thoughts mattered to me. I recall this feeling of disgust that overcame me when Tom Boswell -- the great Thomas Boswell -- forgot (didn't realize?) that Juan Rivera had been traded.

Now, though, whatever. Dumb crap like this is pretty much just an annoyance, assuming I get around to reading it in the first place. In this case, Jayson Werth made some frustrated and cryptic comments that offended the sensibilities of Jason Reid. Reid used those comments as the casus belli for a rather jumbled missive of a column that essentially labels Werth as an overpaid, underperforming troublemaker. Thus begins the narrative, I suppose.

Although Reid certainly could have spun the column in a different direction -- e.g., why on earth is this roster loaded with such useless, veteran dreck? -- Reid's within his rights as an opinion columnist to set his sights at Werth. No debate there. Blaming a team's failures on its best player is a time-honored tradition, and Werth is Washington's best player at the moment (with Ryan Zimmerman out). And Werth makes a lot of money, as Reid reminds us a couple of times. But it strikes me that if you're going to go with a hit piece based on a fairly slight offense, you might as well go much stronger and dumber than Reid has here.

Like this.